Originally posted by The Vile1Why no accent for Pyro? I think the guy they cast as colossus was canadian and a former football player, so I doubt he had much acting experience. I hear he will be in x3.

Perhaps because Pyro's being Australian doesn't really add anything to his character?

Nobody complains about Storm not having a Kenyan accent, I notice.

As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?

Originally posted by The Vile1Why no accent for Pyro? I think the guy they cast as colossus was canadian and a former football player, so I doubt he had much acting experience. I hear he will be in x3.

Perhaps because Pyro's being Australian doesn't really add anything to his character?

Nobody complains about Storm not having a Kenyan accent, I notice.

and wolvie is missing his canadian accent too...

so that was changling in the cartoon, eh? mimic still needs to represent. big feet, angel wings, TP/TK, optic blasts, ice generation....he was the man....

i have 2 of his first apperience (x-men 19?) and might part with one as i'm unloading all my 60's + 70's x-men books to go with the hype with the movie...if anyone is interested, i'll have a link on my sig when i put them up. i expect my giant sized #1, and x-men #94 and hulk 180+181 to go quick...

"Grabbin your butt? That's not very lady-like.""I'm not a lady.""Oh. Whatever."

A lot of drive-ins around the Midwest are showing "Daredevil" as the double-feature with "X2". So check your local listings. It certainly made for a stellar evening for me tonight, and I have never seen so few cars leave after the first feature. Nearly everyone stayed for "Daredevil" tonight.

I actually liked "Daredevil" better than X2, which isn't to say I didn't like X2 because I absolutely did. I especially liked all of the stuff around Dr. Jean Grey. But my exposure to X-Men is solely the movies. So I know nothing about any future character development. It's all new.

The first X-Men was so much better (even though it wasn't that great).

X2 suffered the same problem the 1st X movie did: cramming too many characters and too much story into a 90-120 minute movie. (Yes, I believe Wolverine needed/needs his own movie and. And yes, I know "but it's supposed to have a lot of characters....")

I'm so tired of Rogue. To really stir things up (and piss off the fanboys), kill her off in X3. And I mean REALLY kill her off.

And the similarities between X2 and Star Trek 2.......give me a break.

Not a great way to kick off what was supposed to be a decent summer but.....Matrix Reloaded in 14........Hulk in about 30.

The first X-Men was so much better (even though it wasn't that great).

X2 suffered the same problem the 1st X movie did: cramming too many characters and too much story into a 90-120 minute movie. (Yes, I believe Wolverine needed/needs his own movie and. And yes, I know "but it's supposed to have a lot of characters....")

I'm so tired of Rogue. To really stir things up (and piss off the fanboys), kill her off in X3. And I mean REALLY kill her off.

And the similarities between X2 and Star Trek 2.......give me a break.

Not a great way to kick off what was supposed to be a decent summer but.....Matrix Reloaded in 14........Hulk in about 30.

X2 - **1/4

Did we see the same movie? X2 kicked a lot of ass, and I was grinning ear to ear the whole time. I thought they did everything just about perfectly, and they set up X3 very well. I think the Rogue character needs to get her comic powers by almost killing a marvel girl type mutant, but she was fine in the movie, and I thought they did an outstanding job.

Spawn was soooooo much better than Blade 2. So was The Punisher. And Captain America. Hell, I enjoyed Howard the Duck much more.

-Jag

Roxanne from The Real Cancun on being famous:"I'd rather be known for [dancing topless with my twin sister] instead of being smart or something. There's a million people who are smart. There's only 16 of us who were in Cancun together."

Originally posted by The Vile1Why no accent for Pyro? I think the guy they cast as colossus was canadian and a former football player, so I doubt he had much acting experience. I hear he will be in x3.

Perhaps because Pyro's being Australian doesn't really add anything to his character?

Nobody complains about Storm not having a Kenyan accent, I notice.

I did complain...when the first movie came out. Pyro was kind of a lame one-dimensional character anyway so I didn't say anything about him. I only mention Collosus because of the big deal it was at the time to have a Russian super-hero.

Originally posted by JaguarSpawn was soooooo much better than Blade 2. So was The Punisher. And Captain America. Hell, I enjoyed Howard the Duck much more.

-Jag

I liked Blade 2 more than all of the others you mentioned combined... except one.

Howard the Duck featured Lea Thompson in flimsy purple underwear, attempting to seduce the poultry protagonist, and is thus more worthy than the rest of 'em combined.

"You may be wondering why I have been making so many references lately to Fox News. The reason is that it is now my cable news network of choice -- because if Iím going to watch the news and be lied to, I want it to be ridiculously obvious that I am being lied to." -- Center for an Informed America, Newsletter #34

I saw X-2 Friday night and I loved it. I didn't even notice that it was over two hours long after I watched it. Nightcrawler was the highlight for me and he was handled great in this movie. Another plus was all the killing. I'm a fan of violence and realism in my superhero movies (don't laugh). Wolverine's SWAT team massacre and Magneto's handling of the guards handgrenades kicked ass. Magneto's escape was also a great moment.

I would rate this movie a 8/10 but on my superhero scale I would give it a 9/10.

There was a trailer for "The League of Extradonary Gentlemen" before the movie. Wasn't this a comic as well? Someone refresh my memory.

You look like you just got done f**king the next door neighbor's cat," Norman Darter

Not much more to add to the general sentiment here. Saw it this morning. It blows away the original. I think it's better than Spider-Man, yet I love that as well. (And I have high hopes that Spidey 2 will improve on the original just as X2 has.)

Man, when Colossus transformed, I let out a squeal of geekitude! Am I the only nerd that noticed they misspelled his name as "Raputin" in the credits?

I'm going to start off with the negatives because once I get them out of the way I'll be much calmer.

The easiest to point out was that I felt very pissed off to have the last fifteen minutes feel like a long trailer for X3, which in case the anvil didn't fall on your head may as well be subtitled "Phoenix Kicks Your Ass." While X-Men readers like myself understand who and what Phoenix is, the core audience of young fans does not. When Hank made his short cameo, someone yelled out "Beast" and somebody else yelled out "Where?" But yet, it couldn't commit entirely to satisfing the comic crowd because Wolverine needs as much face time as he can get to please the normal crowd. Therefore the little pieces of beef jerky were thrown to the hardcore audience with promises of prime rib in X3 and/or 4.

With that being said, TOO MANY FUCKING CHARACTERS. Cyclops is the leader of the X-Men and he played seventh or eighth fiddle and ending up coming of like a TOTAL dick. Not a fun, friendly dick who is a born leader like X1, but a jerk who in wrestler terms became a manager, turned heel, turned back, and then jobbed to HHH (Wolverine) and fell to the mid-card. Pyro will play a big part in the next movie I'm sure, but it would've been nice if Mr. Singer could've turned away from his copy of Star Wars Ep II long enough to realize that poor Pyro became the poor man's Anakin. How about Rouge? Wow, you managed to stop a psycho from playing with the cops. Now go stand behind Bobby. Kthx. ROUGE WAS ONE OF THE CENTERS AND PERHAPS THE MOST INTERESTING CHARACTER OF X1.

Additional: Bringing in Lady Deathstrike WITHOUT introduction of her past and making her a "one and done" character is inexcusable, a waste of Kelly Hu. They was no reason why she followed Stryker (outside of the potion) or why she exists. Wolverine didn't even mention her in his and Stryker's convo and the helicopter. What the fuck?

Poor writing. Fat Ass Guard's job is to guard one of the most potentially dangerous men in the entire world. Who let the fat fucking buffoon out to drink in the first place? Secondly, when you wake up in a bathroom stall with no recollection of anything (let along not remembering having sex) your first thought would be to report that you may have been drugged to your superior. Guarding Magneto had to be one of the cushiest jobs in the world. He wouldn't fuck that up.

Next, where was Bobby that entire second half of the movie? Hello? You are in your element Iceman. Why was I the only person to realize this? Once the wave of water leveled out, why was NO ATTEMPT made from Bobby (or even Storm) to freeze the water?

I actually do have more nitpicks, but I feel this is more than enough to have a debate on. Good stuff!

Nightcrawler owned my face every second he was on. AND THEY REMEMBERED HE WAS CATHOLIC!! The opening scene alone may have been worth my ten bucks.

The action sequence on the plane was great. Every person on that plane had a job to do with each individual power. It was written great as a scene and the fucking torandos rocked.

The jokes were well-timed for being such a dark movie, and they were not laugh out loud jokes, more like chuckles (which is good.) Bobby frosting off Logan's soda was one of the best parts of the movie.

Overall I enjoyed the movie. But time didn't fly. I felt every minute of it and it felt like a 90 minute movie stretched into 135 minutes.

Loved the film, but I really wouldn't get excited about the possibilities of X3 for many reasons. Estimates right now ride at around $100million just to reunite the cast-add to that another $200million to really do the film justice. Then, add to that the massive margin for error within the proposed Phoenix storyline (something which, although it has limitless coolness potential, I feel they should've left alone). hell, they've already missed out a huge mass of backstory with the Shi'ar and the M'Kraan crystal i favour of a shoddy "It's just more mutation" angle. The possible diappointment is enough to dampen anyone's spirits. Plus, with the overcrowding here, it's clear that they really can't do the characters justice within the framework of a standard film. I also agreed with SSS's li'l nitpicks there-they're small things but they make a Hell of difference. Deathstrike's misuse is akin to Sabretooth in the first movie-a total waste of backstory. And Magneto was totally shafted here; he felt like Anthony Hopkins in red Dragon-all camp and no bite, as it were.

Outside of that, Nightcrawler fucking rocked, Colossus was superb, the film is easily the best superhero flick ever overall and Brian Cox just won't stop being absolutely excellent in everythign he does.

Originally posted by wafflekingThere was a trailer for "The League of Extradonary Gentlemen" before the movie. Wasn't this a comic as well? Someone refresh my memory.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was/is a comic book written by Alan Moore. The first series is available on softcover and hardcover and is well worth picking up. There is a second series as well but I don't know if it's been collected.

In the Moore series, the action takes place in the 1890's and the "heroes" are Alain Quartermain, Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and The Invisible Man. The bad guys in the first series are Dr. Fu Manchu and Professor Moriarty with a cameo by Mycroft Holmes (amongst many other literary cameos.) It's a very clever series influenced by Philip Jose Farmer amongst others. The big fear is that they have dumbed down the idea of mixing genres. Certainly from the trailer, they have made the Mina Harker character and the Hyde character a much less subtle character than in the original.

The film (from what I can tell from the trailer) pushes the action at least twenty or thirty years ahead in time and adds Tom Sawyer to the mix. (I'm guessing the villains have changed as well.)

Two other things. Someone earlier in the thread said that the best adaptation of a comic book to teh screen is: "AICN" Maybe I'm just dumb, but I have no idea what that is.

Also re comic book adaptations:WHAT? No Popeye love? That film rocked. (It helped that Jules Feiffer, a comics guy, wrote the script.)

Super Shane Spear, the best answer to all you questions, nitpicks, and flaws about X2 are best answered with two words, narrative economy. Things are shown/not shown done/not done in order to move the plot along. It's like in fellowship of the ring, why don't we see the characters dealing with their hygiene issues on such a long journey. You see with things like that, they aren't there for a reason and when you think about stuff like that too much, it just ruins your enjoyment of the movie.

As for the phoenix, viable explanations for Jean's expanding powers could be using Cerebro before she was ready, and/or the radiation from Magneto's mutant machine from the first film. Its not important to be a comic reader or a genius to get what was going on at the end of the film.

"The easiest to point out was that I felt very pissed off to have the last fifteen minutes feel like a long trailer for X3, which in case the anvil didn't fall on your head may as well be subtitled "Phoenix Kicks Your Ass." While X-Men readers like myself understand who and what Phoenix is, the core audience of young fans does not. When Hank made his short cameo, someone yelled out "Beast" and somebody else yelled out "Where?" But yet, it couldn't commit entirely to satisfing the comic crowd because Wolverine needs as much face time as he can get to please the normal crowd. Therefore the little pieces of beef jerky were thrown to the hardcore audience with promises of prime rib in X3 and/or 4."

First off, there isn't any problem with a cliffhanger, or extended trailer as you say here. This kind of hook has been used in movies for quite some time now, and will leave us nerds creaming with anticipation on how they're gonna pull this off while it leaves the normal crowd with questions that they'll probably see X3 to get answered. I don't see what your problem with this is at all, really, and they threw more than just "little pieces of beef jerky" for us nerds, although a cameo by Gambit would've been worth more than just seeing his name.

"With that being said, TOO MANY FUCKING CHARACTERS. Cyclops is the leader of the X-Men and he played seventh or eighth fiddle and ending up coming of like a TOTAL dick. Not a fun, friendly dick who is a born leader like X1, but a jerk who in wrestler terms became a manager, turned heel, turned back, and then jobbed to HHH (Wolverine) and fell to the mid-card."

Ok. I understand this is a wrestling board, but jebus we're talking about movies. LEAVE THE HHH-HATE AND "CARD" NONSENSE ELSEWHERE. That said, it was pretty much a matter of elimination on who'd get the least amount of face-time. With Cyc being portrayed by the least-known and least-experienced actor out of the main characters, who would you think would end up getting the shaft? Wolverine gets a good chunk of time obviously, Storm gets time to make up for the other movie, Jean gets some time to set up for Phoenix (most of which Cyclops was in with her), Nightcrawler gets time because he's the exciting new main char, they wouldn't let SIR IAN MCKELLAN have a minor bit part with Magneto, and they apparently wanted and did gain more respect for Mystique. Now sure, while Cyclops is the leader of the people that go out and fight, coughXAVIERISTHETRUELEADERcough, what is in his character that needs to be portrayed that already hasn't? You mean, he *isn't* a clean-cut serious guy who shoulders the burden of responsibility? Also if you really think Cyclops came out looking like a dick, then you're pretty much the only one my friend. After the first showing, the group of people I was with had nothing but good comments for Cyc and yesterday with my family, again nothing but good comments for him. Hell they sympathized with the guy. Where's the "heel"ness?

"Pyro will play a big part in the next movie I'm sure, but it would've been nice if Mr. Singer could've turned away from his copy of Star Wars Ep II long enough to realize that poor Pyro became the poor man's Anakin."

Actually there were many of us Star Wars fan who wished Pyro could've BEEN Anakin, as we were sorely saddened by Hayden and Lucas' supposed love-dialogue writing. But I digress, those of us nerds know that Pyro is in the Brotherhood. Singer wanted to show the guy turning, so all they do is just start his character off with the Xavier children and let it go. Pyro's too show-happy and too angry to really stay with Xavier's group, he runs afoul of them ("They seem angry." "Gee, I wonder why. ::Looks pointedly at Pyro::"), and finds solace with Magneto. Boom.

"How about Rouge? Wow, you managed to stop a psycho from playing with the cops. Now go stand behind Bobby. Kthx. ROUGE WAS ONE OF THE CENTERS AND PERHAPS THE MOST INTERESTING CHARACTER OF X1."

I agree she was one of the centers, but she was perhaps the most interesting in X1? Not out of Wolverine or Xavier or Magneto or Sabretooth, Rogue? Well it's really a matter of opinion something like that, but I do agree she did get very little to do. But that's for a reason, I think, and one I'll bring up when you mention Bobby/the Blackbird.

"Additional: Bringing in Lady Deathstrike WITHOUT introduction of her past and making her a "one and done" character is inexcusable, a waste of Kelly Hu. They was no reason why she followed Stryker (outside of the potion) or why she exists. Wolverine didn't even mention her in his and Stryker's convo and the helicopter. What the fuck?"

She was the Toad of this movie, the villain that you know was pretty dangerous but knew was gonna eat it in the end. With movies being limited to pretty much two hours, the time was needed for more central plot so her villain gets the shaft. I'd think her and Wolvie's killer fight would've made up for this, and it did in my view.

"Poor writing. Fat Ass Guard's job is to guard one of the most potentially dangerous men in the entire world. Who let the fat fucking buffoon out to drink in the first place? Secondly, when you wake up in a bathroom stall with no recollection of anything (let along not remembering having sex) your first thought would be to report that you may have been drugged to your superior. Guarding Magneto had to be one of the cushiest jobs in the world. He wouldn't fuck that up."

This part'd really fall under the common critic malady of "overthinking the plot". This isn't some kind of Holmes mystery, where you must overthink everything to survive, but an action movie and a X-Men movie. We're supposed to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.

"Next, where was Bobby that entire second half of the movie? Hello? You are in your element Iceman. Why was I the only person to realize this? Once the wave of water leveled out, why was NO ATTEMPT made from Bobby (or even Storm) to freeze the water?"

Here's what really got me to post and connects to your Rogue comments as well. The reason they didn't act, is because while they are mutants, they are TEENAGERS. Teenagers who've had to leave their homes and families behind because of a strange power they possess. Teenagers suddenly thrown right into the middle of a 'war'. Teenagers who'd just recently been run out of the one bastion of safety they had by a bunch of Special Ops forces. Teenagers who are SCARED SHITLESS. While I know we expect heroics out of our mutants, the fact remains they're very human and their fear is keeping them from thinking rationally and thinking from how they could help. Look at how Rogue was, just from flying the Blackbird. You think Bobby'd leave that plane, their ticket out of there, face that gigantic rushing torrent of water and attempt to freeze it? You give his nerves more credit than me. And Storm was too busy trying to fix the problem in the cockpit, using whatever tools there, to worry about the water.

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(edited by BoromirMark on 4.5.03 1324)"People use freedom of speech to make up for freedom of thought, which they lack." - Kierkegaard

For me it was the intervention later on. "nonjudgmental confrontation," indeed. *L* As for the rest, yeah this episode was one of the season's best. It amazing how good things get when they stop wasting time.